By Jim Litke
AP Sports Columnist

SANDWICH, England - The kid never lacked for nerve. Ben Curtis grew up on a golf course his grandfather built and his father took care of, but that didn't explain why he walked around Mill Creek back in tiny Ostrander, Ohio, like he owned the place.

Curtis did that because there were few things he believed he couldn't do with a golf club - and that's when he wasn't much taller than a 2-iron.

"Ben never scared easily," Bob Curtis recalled over the telephone Sunday. "When he was a kid, he'd bet the grown-ups on the course $5 he could get the ball on the green, even though he didn't have a buck in his pocket."

Now, he has $1.1 million in the bank and the claret jug that goes to the British Open champion.

Now the rest of the world knows how a rookie ranked No. 396 in the world held off major championship winners Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Davis Love III and European tour star Thomas Bjorn down the stretch at treacherous Royal St. George's.

"I was shaking in my boots, obviously," Curtis said. "But I was just out there very focused on what I had to do, and then let my work speak for itself. If it was good enough, fine. If not, I can live with it."

Given his pedigree, maybe no one should have been surprised that Curtis loved golf.

Except that even parents Bob and Janice Curtis had no idea how much that was until that frantic night when they went to look in on their 5-year-old son at 11 o'clock and saw an empty bed.

"It's dark out and we're running around the house pulling our hair out," Bob said. "And then I looked out the window and there's Ben on the putting green in his pajamas with the footies, putting away.

"He'd crawled out of his bed, gone over to the course and turned on the lights in my office so he could keep practicing. I guess," his father added above the growing din in the background, "that's when we realized he really, really loved the game."

Bob was speaking from Mill Creek, where he's the superintendent and where a few moments earlier, a crowd of family members, friends and neighbors erupted in celebration after watching Bjorn's birdie try at the 18th stop just inches short of the hole.

At about the same time, Curtis was standing on the practice range at Royal St. George's, firing wedges at a nearby flag to get ready for a possible playoff.

Instead, Andrew Sutton, the European tour caddie whom Curtis hired a week ago, leaned out of the equipment trailer where he'd gone to watch television. "Ben," he said matter-of-factly, "you're the Open champion. "

Curtis turned to the hundred or so spectators who had followed him to the range and lifted his wedge toward the sky. It was as fitting a tribute as any to one of the most unpredictable finishes ever in a major championship.

As he made his way back to the 18th green for the trophy presentation, a crowd of reporters had gathered around Woods. Off to one side, Curtis saw his fiancee, Candace Beatty, with tears welling in her eyes. All she could say was, "Oh my God, baby."

Curtis broke into a grin. While divine intervention would have been welcome, it wasn't needed.

Curtis turned out to be a cool enough customer on his own. He was a junior champion, a state high school champion, a three-time All-American and he won back-to-back Ohio Amateur titles, a feat matched in the last half-century by only Arnold Palmer and John Cook.

But he traces his golfing lineage back even further, to maternal grandfather Bill Black, who quit coaching high school basketball to build Mill Creek, about 25 miles north of Columbus, Ohio, and teach Ben how to play golf.

"It's a very nice public course, but not a championship course or anything," Curtis said. "But just having that at my footsteps was unbelievable."

Black died five months ago, but not before his grandson showed him something both men would treasure. It was Curtis' PGA Tour card, a hard-won prize that came only after three trips to qualifying school and two years on the Hooters Tour.

No one could have imagined that only a few months later Curtis, 26, would be the British Open champion. It's a moment, Bob Curtis says, that Black would have loved. "He's there, we just can't see him."

Bob didn't get to watch all of the final round because he spent part of the day mowing Mill Creek's greens. For most of the day, his son navigated the linksland of Royal St. George's like a kid who grew up within a tee shot of the sea, instead of one who grew up almost smack in the middle of America.

He got to 5-under par at the 11th. But with Woods and the top golfers in the world closing in on him, Curtis bogeyed four of the final seven holes. But he wasn't the only one losing his way across the humps and hollows. In quick succession, Royal St. George's bit into one reputation after another. By the end, Curtis simply had the fewest teethmarks on him.

"There's so many professional golfers out there that set the dream just to win a major," he said. "And I did it in my first try."

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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org